What good is it to have goals and make plans if there are no intentional daily decisions to make them a reality?

Erica Bartolina pole vaulted for the United States in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, and she has many new targets – the biggest is the 2012 Olympics in London. Every day she chooses behaviors that advance her ambitions. One of the biggest things is remembering why she has these aspirations in the first place.

“I like pole vaulting,” Bartolina said. “I like the fact that you always have something you can work on, you know? You’re always striving for a little bit more. Your technique is never perfect, so you can always be a little bit better. And as long as you can always be a little bit better, you can always jump higher – and that’s more fun.”

Since a day starts the night before, Bartolina places high importance on getting nine hours of sleep. That calls for being purposeful and actually going to bed, but she knows it’s worth it when at 7 a.m. she voluntarily wakes up instead of reluctantly waking to the sound of an alarm clock.

In the morning she eats breakfast and has coffee. Breakfast is usually oatmeal with blueberries, a bagel with peanut putter and jelly or Quaker Oat Squares. It’s pretty consistent so she’ll know when she will get hungry again and so she’ll be sure to have enough carbohydrates to get through her workout.

As far as her diet goes, the athlete doesn’t count calories or limit herself excessively. She just eats healthy and takes in plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables. The key is leaving the unhealthy food at the grocery store.

“I try not to buy stuff that’s a temptation for me because if it’s in my house, I’ll eat it,” Bartolina said. “I don’t have that much self control. As long as I don’t have bad stuff in the house, then pretty much everything is healthy. I can eat as much of it as I want, and life is good.”

Her husband and coach, Michael Bartolina, doesn’t eat as healthy as she does. She just buys things he likes that she doesn’t really care about.

She tries not to plan anything in between breakfast and training. That way she’s not rushed and can use the time for mental preparation, whether it’s praying, meditating, journaling, doing relaxation exercises or visualizing.

Bartolina has a four-hour time frame for her workout. She may not train the entire time, but that leaves room for things related to training like treatment on the foot that she injured and ice baths. Her workout consists of a 45-minute warm-up that includes hurdle mobility, dynamic flexibility and sprint drills.The warm-up isn’t just to get ready to work out, it’s a workout in itself that maintains core strength and helps hip flexor muscles among other things.

Her warm-up is done every day. Then she does a sprint, stadium or tire pull workout. General strength exercises like pushups, sit-ups and lunge walks are also a big part of her workout. She doesn’t do a lot of weights so she won’t get bulky. Squats and power cleans two to three days a week are about all she does in the weight room.

Bartolina has added a few more things to keep her foot strong, but other than that her training days are consistent. She trains on four-week cycles where she works up harder every week for three weeks, and the fourth week is a rest week. She’ll go through December for fall training. During competition, she does half as much, but she just has to maintain the work she has already put in.

For lunch, Bartolina typically eats a sandwich with turkey breast, tomato, lettuce and other toppings. “I make good fat sandwiches with all the good stuff on it,” she said.

In the afternoons, she has personal training clients. She started about four years ago when she casually helped people who asked for help. She enjoys helping people be healthy.

Bartolina coaches her pole vault club Sunday afternoons and Monday and Wednesday nights. She and her husband have a new facility at their house now, so they’re no longer leasing a warehouse.

Dinner is whatever she feels like cooking, but she takes the time to prepare food. “I like to cook,” she said. “I’m not a fancy cook. I’m not a chef, but I like to cook food that tastes good. It may not look pretty, but it tastes good.”

Bartolina realizes what happens in the next couple of months carries a lot of weight and will affect her long-term goals. She said she wants to jump well at the early college meets so that she will be able to go back to the bigger professional meets.